Portsmouth Herald file photo
Traip’s Ben Castellano was named Campbell Conference Class C player of the year last weekend. Under a new realignment plan approved by the MPA, Traip will move down to Class D next season.

AUGUSTA, Maine — The football committee of the Maine Principals’ Association gave unanimous approval Wednesday to a plan that would expand the state’s high school football world from three to four classes next fall for the first time since 1986.

The panel voted 5-0 to send its final proposal along to the MPA’s classification committee, which will discuss the plan at a Dec. 10 meeting.

The issue must pass through both the classification panel as well as the association’s interscholastic management committee in the coming months, with final approval required by the MPA’s general membership at its spring conference in late March before it would be implemented starting with the 2013 season.

As that process continues, individual football programs will have the opportunity to appeal their placements within the four-class hierarchy.

“I think it’s just in the best interests of football in Maine so you don’t have as big an [enrollment] gap in any one classification,” said football committee chairman Todd Livingston, the athletic administrator at South Portland High School. “It brings the numbers closer together in each class.

“The MPA has always based classification on enrollment, and in the case of football when you have schools drawing players from enrollments of similar size, I think that’s the best way to look at it.”

The proposal places the state’s 76 varsity football teams in the following configuration: 18 schools in Classes A, B and C, equally divided with nine teams in each Eastern Maine class as well as nine in the West; and 22 teams in Class D with 11 in both Eastern and Western Maine.

Enrollment cutoffs for each class were tweaked to provide an even number of schools in each class statewide.

“I think after four years of looking at football classification across the state, getting the feedback from schools and going through numerous proposals that were put out, this proposal hopefully reflects the work that has been put in and is what’s best for football across the entire state,” said MPA assistant executive director Mike Burnham.

“People have been very receptive to the work that’s been done, so I don’t think it’s as much about trying to keep everybody happy as it’s been trying to keep it equitable for as many schools as possible given the growth that football’s seen here.”

The classification process is designed to determine representatives to the state championship games contested each November, but regular-season schedules still would be determined more locally.

That means that as MPA committees continue to discuss the proposal, football conferences around the state will be busy this winter developing master schedules for the next two-year classification cycle.

And with an odd number of teams in each regional division, those schedules almost certainly will include crossover games either between Eastern and Western teams in the same class or interclass matchups with Class B teams playing one game against a Class C opponent, for example.

Both crossover methods have been used in the past.

“Hopefully the leagues can work together and be creative and come up with the best possible scenarios for all, taking into consideration travel, strength of schedule, history of programs and all those types of things,” said Livingston.

The football committee’s proposal culminates four years of work that began in 2009 and initially was stalled when the idea was tabled in 2010.

In the aftermath of that decision, the committee continued to study ways to address the gradual growth of high school football in Maine and enhance competitive balance, a process that included a survey of football-playing schools statewide.

The football committee revisited the four-class concept earlier this year. After meeting in early August, the committee awaited additional feedback from member schools that wished to be placed in a class or region different than that dictated by student enrollment — the statistic used by the MPA to classify teams in all 27 of the activities it sponsors.

Three schools subsequently sought to be reclassified down — Camden Hills of Rockport and Nokomis of Newport from Class B to Class C, and Mount Ararat of Topsham from Class A to Class C.

The Camden Hills and Nokomis requests were granted, while Mount Ararat was dropped just one class from Class A to Class B. Committee members said the only times schools have been allowed to play two classes lower than their class by enrollment involved brand new programs.

Ellsworth-Sumner would be allowed to play down two classes from Class B to Class D for the next two years under the four-class proposal because it is still a new program, having completed its first season this fall after joining the varsity ranks in the middle of the just-completed two-year cycle after Calais-Woodland suspended its program.

Teams that compete in a class lower than their enrollment dictates are not eligible for postseason play, but the tactic is seen as a way to help new programs get started or give struggling programs a chance to become more competitive.

One other request involving a change from the Aug. 7 draft proposal came from Maranacook of Readfield, which asked to be shifted from Eastern Maine Class C to Western C.

The move of Mount Ararat from Class A to Class B resulted in the enrollment cutoff for Class A being shifted from 854 to 850, thus moving Gorham from Class B to Class A to provide an even number of schools that could be divided equally between East and West.

Windham subsequently was shifted from West to East under the plan, joining Bangor, Brunswick, Cheverus of Portland, Deering of Portland, Edward Little of Auburn, Lewiston, Oxford Hills of South Paris and Portland in the proposed nine-team Eastern Maine Class A.

Western A would include Biddeford, Bonny Eagle of Standish, Gorham, Massabesic of Waterboro, Noble of North Berwick, Sanford, Scarborough, South Portland and Thornton Academy of Saco.

Biddeford, with an enrollment of 830 as of April 1, and Cheverus, with 519 students, had requested earlier this year to play up in Class A.

The Class B minimum enrollment was changed from 625 to 600, resulting in a proposed Eastern Maine grouping of Brewer, Cony of Augusta, Hampden Academy, Gardiner, Lawrence of Fairfield, Messalonskee of Oakland, Mt. Blue of Farmington, Oceanside of Rockland-Thomaston and Skowhegan.

Oceanside had been placed in Western B in August, while Gardiner previously had been slotted in Eastern C.

Joining Mount Ararat in Western B would be Falmouth, Fryeburg Academy, Greely of Cumberland Center, Kennebunk, Marshwood of South Berwick, Morse of Bath, Westbrook and York.

York had been in Western C under the August plan while Morse had been in Eastern C.

The proposed Class C minimum enrollment was elevated from 456 in August to 460, with the resulting Eastern Maine division composed of Belfast, Waterville, Madison-Carrabec, Hermon, Mount Desert Island, Old Town, Camden Hills, Nokomis and Winslow, a longtime Eastern Maine football staple that has played in Western Maine the last two years.

Wells (434 students) and Mountain Valley (395) requested to play up in Class C earlier this year rather than be dropped by enrollment to Class D.

The Class D maximum enrollment was inched up from 455 to 459 in order to ensure an even number of schools, meaning that Foxcroft Academy of Dover-Foxcroft, the reigning Class C state champion in the current three-class format, will remain in the state’s smallest-school division — Class D — under the four-class proposal with its April 1 enrollment of 457.

Foxcroft would be joined in Eastern Maine Class D by John Bapst of Bangor, Mount View of Thorndike, Maine Central Institute of Pittsfield, Washington Academy of East Machias, Bucksport, Orono, Mattanawcook Academy of Lincoln, Dexter, Stearns of Millinocket and Ellsworth-Sumner.

Western D would include Yarmouth, Oak Hill of Wales, Maranacook, Lisbon, Sacopee Valley of South Hiram, Dirigo of Dixfield, Traip Academy of Kittery, Old Orchard Beach, Telstar of Bethel, Winthrop and Boothbay.